Swiss Post, Swiss WorldCargo and Matternet are jointly testing the commercial use of logistics drones. The three companies are investigating specific uses of drone technology and examining the cost-effectiveness of these business ideas. They will be carrying out drone tests in July 2015 for this purpose. The widespread use of drones is not expected within the next five years. The focus is primarily on their use in exceptional cases or the transport of special items. In spring 2015, Swiss Post, Swiss WorldCargo (the air freight division of Swiss International Air Lines) and Matternet (a logistics drone manufacturer based in California)...

Former U.S. postal worker who says he got ‘lazy’ sentenced It’s long been said that mail carriers deliver through snow, rain, heat and gloom of night. Maybe that’s because if they fail to do the job right, they could end up charged with a federal crime. A now-former U.S. Postal Service worker from ­Eugene learned that the hard way after police recovered nearly 1,000 pieces of undelivered mail from two bins on his front porch in July. The bins contained primarily merchant advertisements (or “junk” mail), but included 27 voter ballots from May’s primary election and more than 200 items...

Chinese government operatives reportedly are suspected of hacking the U.S. Postal Service, in a security breach that may have compromised personal information for more than 800,000 workers. The breach was announced Monday, as President Obama arrived in Beijing. The Postal Service confirmed the incident in a written statement, saying personal information that may have been obtained in the attack includes employees' names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, addresses, emergency contacts and other information. The agency said customers at local post offices or those using its website, usps.com, were not affected. However, people who used its call center may have...

MADISON, Wis. — Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night may keep postal carriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. But partisan politics, now that may be another matter altogether. An investigation has been launched into a Neenah postal carrier who allegedly dumped into a recycling bin hundreds of political advertisement mailers from the campaign of Mike Rorhkaste, Republican candidate for Wisconsin’s 55th Assembly District, Rorhkaste tells Wisconsin Reporter. Neenah Postmaster Brian Smoot, who was alerted to the incident on Thursday, confirmed there is an ongoing investigation into the matter, and referred Wisconsin Reporter to...

The Neenah mail carrier who dumped hundreds of GOP political mailers in an apartment complex Dumpster wasn’t politically motivated; the postal worker just didn’t feel like delivering the stacks of campaign advertisements, according to preliminary findings from the U.S. Postal Service Office of the Inspector General. “Based upon our investigation, this was nothing done toward a specific candidate or party. It looks like it was a decision made by the carrier, and it was not a good decision,” to not deliver the campaign advertisements, Robert Rukes, special agent with the inspector general’s office in Chicago, told Wisconsin Reporter Monday. “A...

A Catonsville letter carrier who worked for the postal service for more than two decades stole more than 20,000 pieces of mail, according to federal authorities. Jeffrey L. Shipley is accused of pilfering checks and money orders. He is accused of filching passports and prescription medication. He is accused of pilfering credit cards and Mother's Day cards. He is even accused of stealing furniture from the United States Postal Service. Shipley was charged in federal court last week with one count each of mail theft and delaying the mail. Neither Shipley nor his attorney could immediately be reached for comment...

The US Postal Service announced Friday that it lost $1.9 billion over its most recent quarter, despite bringing in more revenue during that three-month span. The red ink means the cash-strapped agency has now lost money in 20 of the last 22 quarters. In all, the agency lost some $2.2 billion in the first six months of fiscal 2014, through March 31. Postal officials again cited the losses to press lawmakers to enact a comprehensive overhaul of the agency, which has now lost more than $23 billion over the last two and a half years.

A former U.S. Postal Service employee in Anchorage was arraigned Friday on charges he accepted at least $334,000 in disability and worker's comp payments while he spent his summers fishing. The U.S. attorney's office says in a Friday release that 56-year-old Amacio Zamora Agcaoili Jr. was indicted by a federal grand jury on 18 counts, including theft of government funds. Assistant U.S. Attorney Yvonne Lamoureux also claims Agcaoli lied about not working when he was paid for preparing tax returns and immigration paperwork. Authorities also claim he failed to tell the Social Security Administration about his worker's comp payments, to...

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has posted a request to purchase “assorted small arms ammunition,” reports political analyst Michael Lotfi. The solicitation by the USPS was posted on FBO.gov, the federal government’s federal business opportunities website. The process is now underway to arrange for the purchase of guns and ammo for some undisclosed use by the post office. As Lotfi points out, it is curious that the postal service can afford to arm itself given their precarious financial position: The USPS has been posting $1-5 billion quarterly losses for years. In fiscal year (FY) 2012 alone the USPS lost a...

A present from Sasha and Malia Obama ended up at a suburban Chicago woman's home by mistake. Alane Church livesin farnorth suburban Wadsworth. She was expecting a Christmas package, but it was delayedbecauseof damages. When it finally arrived Wednesday morning, there was a second package inside that wasn't hers.

<p>Private carriers have been shipping alcohol for decades, but the postal service is prevented by law from engaging in the same business.</p>
<p>On Thursday, Postmaster General Patrick Donahue said he hopes the agency can deliver alcoholic beverages and thereby raise $50 million a year.</p>

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is reaching out across the aisle for suggestions on his new discussion draft to revamp the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). Issa released the discussion draft last week, in an attempt to broaden the support for his efforts at postal reform. And in a "Dear Colleague" letter aimed at Democrats, the California Republican says that “while the challenges are great, I strongly believe that the Postal Service is a government institution worth saving.” “While we may not agree on every issue in how to save the Postal Service, I do believe that we all...

The United States Postal Service said Wednesday that it would delay its plan to cease delivery of first-class mail on Saturdays, rescuing for now a service that it says is costly but that many Americans rely on. The USPS said in a statement that restrictive language in Congress' continuing resolution to fund government operations has forced it to postpone the move until "legislation is passed that provides the Postal Service with the authority to implement a financially appropriate and responsible delivery schedule." The USPS said that while it is disappointed, it will follow the law but will continue to support...

Four hundred U.S. Postal Service executives are heading to San Francisco next month for workshops, meetings — and a dance party. And a golf tournament. And a dinner event. That’s according to a report by KTVU, which found 400 USPS staffers, including the postmaster general, are set to attend the four-day National Postal Forum in March at the Moscone Center in California. The trip is expected to cost the flailing agency — which is pushing to stop Saturday letter delivery due to revenue issues — more than $2 million, KTVU reports. An estimated $220,000 is going to spent on exhibit...

The U.S. Postal Service's decision to eliminate Saturday delivery could disproportionally hurt minority groups, according to Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee. "You're talking about just this reduction … from six days to five days will cut anywhere from 25,000 to 30,000 employees. And with regard to Asian, African-Americans, and Hispanics, they comprise about 40 percent of the Postal Service employees," Cummings told Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC Friday night. "So it's logical to believe if they were to lose that 30,000 jobs, easily 40 percent of them would be African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asian-Americans." Cummings...

The U.S. Postal Service will stop delivering mail on Saturdays but continue to deliver packages six days a week under a plan aimed at saving about $2 billion, the financially struggling agency says. In an announcement scheduled for later Wednesday, the service is expected to say the Saturday mail cutback would begin in August. The move accentuates one of the agency's strong points -- package delivery has increased by 14 percent since 2010, officials say, while the delivery of letters and other mail has declined with the increasing use of email and other Internet use.

"government lawyer’s attempt to get dismissed nearly $700 in traffic tickets given to the U.S. Postal Service is being met with a hearty and humorous, no. In a Jan. 22 letter sent to both the city of East Cleveland, Ohio, and the company that operates the city's photo-enforcement program, Postal Service attorney says two school-zone speeding citations and five red-light infractions by postal trucks in December should be ignored. “In providing mail service across the country, the Postal Service attempts to work within local and state laws and regulations, when feasible,” wrote Breslin, after reminding “To Whom It May Concern”...

The head of the financially struggling U.S. Postal Service said the agency must be allowed to ease the terms of prepayments into a retiree health-care fund and eliminate general mail delivery on Saturday. Patrick Donahoe told "CBS This Morning" the agency isn't asking Congress for money. He said, "I think most people don't realize, we're 100 percent self-sufficient. We pay our own way." But the postal chief notes the agency is losing $15.9 billion this year. Donahoe says the post office needs to refinance retirement health fund payments to $1 billion a year instead of $5 billion. He said the...

Ten current and former postal workers launched a more than 3-day hunger strike Monday to protest looming cuts and closures at the U.S. Postal Service. Drastic? Yes. But organizers say desperate times call for desperate measures. The hunger strikers want the Postal Service to shelve its July plans to start closing or consolidating 48 mail processing plants. By the end of 2014, when the plan to shrink the postal network is completed, 229 plants will be consolidated or closed and 28,000 jobs will be gone. They also want Congress to eliminate a mandate that has been a major financial drag...

The U.S. Postal Service is offering buyouts to 45,000 mail handlers, part of the struggling agency's efforts to shed staff and cut costs. The $15,000 buyouts, pro-rated for part-time staff, are available to nearly all of the Postal Service's mail handlers, excluding around 2,000 who aren't career employees Mail handlers work at post offices and mail processing centers sorting mail, transporting it within their facility and loading and unloading trucks. "The Postal Service is adjusting the size of its network to adapt to America's changing mailing trends," USPS spokesman Mark Saunders said in an email Friday. The Postal Service wants...

DETROIT (WJBK) -- Police say a man and his friend are in a lot of trouble for what they did to a Detroit postal worker. "Our postal carrier was in his vehicle, and two African-American males approached him. One had a gun," said Wiley Christopher with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. The incident happened on May 1 around the same time you would expect to see a lot of government checks and food stamps in the mail. Police say the guys didn't get away with anything, but there is still an award for information leading to an arrest. "We find...

ORLANDO, Fla. — A postal worker says a mysterious leaking package from Yemen has left him seriously ill, but the U.S. Postal Service denies the package ever existed. The Florida Center for Investigative Reporting, in a story printed in Sunday's Miami Herald and The Ledger of Lakeland, reported that Jeffrey A. Lill suffers from extreme fatigue, tremors, and liver and neurological problems. The symptoms are consistent with toxic exposure, problems that he said began after he handled the leaking package on Feb. 4, 2011. The center tracked down co-workers who said that they saw and smelled the package and that...

The U.S. Postal Service backed off from a proposal to close thousands of rural post offices, opting instead to cut opening hours in a bid to stem devastating financial losses. The postal service estimates that the new plan will save $500 million a year once it is fully implemented in 2014. The previous proposal would have closed more than 3,000 rural post offices to save $200 million a year. Under the plan outlined Wednesday, 13,167 post offices will open for two to six hours a day. A spokeswoman for the postal service said that no community would be required to...

A NYT article on the financial difficulties of the Postal Service concluded with a comment from Art Sackler, the chairman of the Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service: "They haven’t had a good track record when it comes to developing new lines of business." This organization is identified as "a mailing industry group that includes companies like FedEx, said the Postal Service." It might have been worth reminding readers that FedEx and UPS have in the past used their political power to limit the ability of the Postal Service to compete with them.

Technology’s rapid advance over the past few decades has brought an era of unprecedented communication among Americans. With video chat, people separated by thousands of miles can interact as if they’re in the same room. Small business owners can pay bills with the click of a mouse. The original online communications technology—e-mail—has become so much more. And there’s a government agency that is not happy about this The U.S Postal Service is in crisis. Mail volume peaked in 2006, and they have been losing business—and more importantly, money—ever since. As an arm of the federal government, taxpayers should be worried...

The nation's largest mail-carriers union wants the U.S. Postal Service to raise stamp prices and expand mail delivery. In a report to be released Tuesday, it sharply criticizes the agency's own rescue plan and argues the Postal Service will become profitable only if it restructures itself like a business. Labor groups, for instance, generally oppose cuts to service. The mailing industry opposes higher postage fees. Many legislators say the Postal Service needs to close facilities—but not in their district. And a Republican-led bill set to be heard by the full House looks askance at any proposal that would allow the...

The U.S. Postal Service wants small businesses to send more direct mail, a.k.a. junk mail, to help the beleaguered agency expand its revenue stream by hundreds of millions of dollars. In a campaign called "Every Door Direct Mail," the Postal Service is touting a year-old online tool to help small businesses micro-target direct mail. The Web tool allows firms to tap customers by neighborhood or zip code without names or addresses. The Postal Service reported a $5.1 billion loss for the year ended Sept. 30. The loss was caused by an ongoing decline in its core revenue driver, regular letters...

Senate Democrats divided over deep cuts to U.S. Postal ServicesBy Alexander Bolton - 02/05/12 06:00 AM ET Senate Democratic lawmakers from rural states are balking at legislation from the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that would let the U.S. Postal Service close thousands of offices. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has convened meetings of Senate colleagues and staffs to overhaul the bill, which he believes could lead to the eventual privatization of the postal service. The postal reform bill crafted by Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) was expected to reach the Senate floor as soon as next week....

A gunman with a rifle opened fire at a Southern California Edison office in Irwindale on Friday, killing two employees and wounding two others before taking his own life. One of the victims died at the scene and the other died on the way to the hospital. The conditions of the two other victims were not immediately available, said Capt. Michael Taylor of the Baldwin Park Police Department, A source said the gunman was also an employee at the Edison building who worked as as systems analyst. His name was not released. At least some of the victims were supervisors...

Stressing that the United States Postal Service will run out of money to deliver mail by next summer, a bipartisan group of senators unveiled a proposal to help rescue the postal service. “We are not crying wolf here,” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said today. “The postal service literally will not survive unless comprehensive, legislative and administrative reforms are undertaken.” Along with Collins, Sens. Tom Carper, D-Del., Scott Brown, R-Mass., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., revealed their plan, actually a melding of two plans, today at a news conference. It calls for a fundamental restructuring of the postal service, including cost-saving changes...

Ian Robinson, 43, had to leave his job after developing arthritis, but the authorities have ruled he is not entitled to disability benefits and he must now try to survive on Jobseeker's Allowance. Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/news/877955-naked-ex-postman-superglues-himself-to-desk-in-job-centre-protest#ixzz1bjoZJJnJ Mr Robinson decided to demonstrate how angry he was about the decision by staging a bizarre protest in front of shocked staff at Bridlington Job Centre. 'When I started taking my clothes off, a man said "You can't do that in here", so I went over and glued myself to his desk. Nobody tried to stop me, it was too late by that point,'...

WASHINGTON (AP) — It'll cost a penny more to mail a letter next year. The cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service announced Tuesday that it will increase postage rates on Jan. 22, including a 1-cent increase in the cost of first-class mail, to 45 cents.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa - Some workers at a Sioux City mail processing center could be paid even if they don't work after the facility closes. The U.S. Postal Service is closing the center on Friday and transferring the work to Sioux Falls, S.D. Spokesman Richard Watkins said that about 100 workers have taken other mail jobs and 40 others are on standby status. Those standby workers will have to take other postal service jobs before their contract expires in 2015. In the meantime, Watkins said, they could be asked to report to the Sioux City post office and sit in...

The United States Postal Service has spread the alarms. It has run through a $12 billion federal loan that has kept itself afloat for the past two years and it is now looking for a bailout. It cites declining revenues because of the internet, the inordinate cost of its pension program and the inability to control labor costs because of no-layoff provisions in its union contracts. It wants to cut service to 5 days a week, possibly more and it is planning to slow the delivery of first class mail. It has talked about reductions in force of 120,000, but...

Postal Politics: If the U.S. Postal Service were a regular business, it would be filing for bankruptcy protection about now. So why not let it do just that? You'll have to ask the unions for an answer to that one. Article I of the Constitution says Congress shall have the power to "establish post offices and post roads." There's nothing here about a jobs program, but that's roughly what the modern-day postal service has become. Yes, it still carries out an essential task, as it did in the Founders' era. But it could do that work with about two-thirds of...

Obama's Postal Service plan would cut Saturday mail By Emily Stephenson 15 mins ago WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration's plan to rescue the U.S. Postal Service would allow the agency to end Saturday mail delivery and sell non-postal products, according to documents released on Monday. The plan, introduced alongside a deficit-reduction package, also would restructure a massive annual payment to prefund retiree health benefits and refund $6.9 billion the mail carrier says it overpaid into a federal retirement fund. The White House says its plan would save the Postal Service more than $20 billion in the next few years....

The real issue surrounding the U.S. Postal Service's financial crunch is not whether payroll, benefits and services should be cut, but whether they can be cut. The crisis in the postal service, an independent agency, portends deeper and equally intractable problems in the larger federal behemoth. Like most government agencies and many businesses, the postal service is trying to confront a perfect storm of diminishing revenue and rising costs. It expects to save $20 million this year by curbing what the postal service calls "standby time," in which workers have to be paid under their union contract for not working....

The US Postal Service could fully meet its financial obligations, extinguish debt and have substantial cash flow if Congress rectifies the organization's possible overfunding of its pension and retiree healthcare funds, the USPS' Office of Inspector General (OIG) said in a summary report. The OIG has issued four reports in the past year on the Postal Service's possible overfunding of its pension funds and retiree healthcare fund. One report found that the USPS has overpaid the Civil Service Retirement System by about $75 billion since 1972 because of an outdated calculation method. Another report found that if the Postal Service...

The United States Postal Service has long lived on the financial edge, but it has never been as close to the precipice as it is today: the agency is so low on cash that it will not be able to make a $5.5 billion payment due this month and may have to shut down entirely this winter unless Congress takes emergency action to stabilize its finances. “Our situation is extremely serious,” the postmaster general, Patrick R. Donahoe, said in an interview. “If Congress doesn’t act, we will default.” In recent weeks, Mr. Donahoe has been pushing a series of painful...

U.S. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe has said that the United States Postal Service will default on its obligations to the federal government on September 30, at the end of the current fiscal year. Now the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has launched a website to educate the public about the Postal Service’s financial troubles and some possible solutions. The Postal Service lost $8.5 billion in the last fiscal year. Oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, Republican from California, and other committee members have said the result will likely be a taxpayer bailout.

...As a government-run organization, the Post Office is isolated from the innovation of marketplace competition. Unlike its private sector competitors, the Postal Service does not pay the corporate income tax, is exempt from anti-trust laws, and is advantaged by unique customer access opportunities such as having mailboxes on the street. Despite these legal protections, USPS spends in the red while generously paying employee benefits above and beyond levels for other federal workers. While postal workers only pay 21 percent of health care costs and none of their life insurance premiums, federal workers pay 28 percent of healthcare costs and are...

The U.S. Postal Service, expecting $7 billion in losses this year amid slumping mail volume, is still paying thousands of its workers millions of dollars each year to do nothing. But it’s paying tens of millions of dollars less for “standby time” than it did just two years ago, according to a new report. Long-standing labor agreements with two major postal unions prohibit the Postal Service from laying off or reassigning workers because of broken equipment or periods of low mail volume. Instead, idled employees show up for work, sit in a break room or cafeteria and do nothing. Standby...

Americans would rather see the U.S. Postal Service dramatically cut its workforce and reduce mail delivery to three or four days a week than have the government pour more money into the financially struggling agency. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 50% of American Adults believe the federal government should allow the Postal Service to lay off the estimated 120,000 workers it needs to reduce its current losses rather than provide the agency with additional subsidies to cover those losses. Thirty-three percent (33%) think the government should provide subsidies to cover the agency’s losses, estimated at $8...

CLEVELAND, Tenn. — Eager to prevent the threatened closure of Cleveland’s downtown post office, Mayor Tom Rowland appealed Monday to U.S. Sen. Bob Corker to spare the Broad Street office. “We sure could use your help,” Rowland told Corker during a meeting with more than two dozen Cleveland business leaders. Corker listened politely but offered little encouragement about removing the post office from a list of 3,700 possible closings. “Every time a tough decision has to be made, I can’t be calling up and asking that the decision be reversed,” he said. With the Postal Service running an $8 billion...

YesterdayÂ’s front-page Washington Post headline screamed: Â“Proposal to slash horse & buggy jobs blasted by unions.Â” The Post went on to discuss a plan by horse-and-buggy management to Â“lay off 120,000 workers,Â” a move that Â“would further wound an already ailing labor movement.Â” Horse-and-buggy unions pleaded that Â“workers have made many concessionsÂ” previously Â“in an age of dwindling rider volume.Â” Wait a second . . . did I write Â“horse & buggyÂ”? Heavens! I meant to write Â“postal,Â” as in the United States Postal Service. Just switch the word Â“postalÂ” for Â“horse & buggyÂ” and all is well. Or not...

SEATTLE — The financially strapped U.S. Postal Service is proposing to cut its workforce by 20 percent and to withdraw from the federal health and retirement plans because it believes it could provide benefits at a lower cost. The layoffs would be achieved in part by breaking labor agreements, a proposal that drew swift fire from postal unions. The plan would require congressional approval but, if successful, could be precedent-setting, with possible ripple effects throughout government. It would also deliver a major blow to the nation’s labor movement.

In an attempt to stem its financial hemorrhaging, the U.S. Postal Service is seeking to reduce its workforce by 20 percent, including through layoffs now prohibited by union contracts. USPS also wants to withdraw its employees from the health and retirement plans that cover federal staffers and create its own benefit programs for postal employees. This major restructuring of the Postal Service’s relationship with its workforce would need congressional approval and would face fierce opposition from postal unions. But if approved, eliminating contract provisions that prevent layoffs and quitting the federal employee health and retirement programs could have ramifications for...